I was just a couple of years old when this book was first published. It may be more well known from the 70s movie of the same title, featuring Walter Matthau, about a hard-luck kid, his ne'er-do-well father, and an orphan colt he raises from birth.
Inside the cover of my edition, which is a first edition, is a stamp which reads "Snooper's Barn" 1101 Garrison Ave., Fort Smith, AR. This old-school used bookstore is one of my dad (and my!) favorite places, and I remember when he came to visit me when I lived there as a kid in the mid-80s, going to this bookstore to browse, and he bought this book for me. I had seen the movie on TV, so I was familiar with it.
It's about a trainer who comes across the opportunity of a lifetime, when his son purchases, on behalf of one of his clients, who is none too thrilled, an old mare bred to a great champion running Quarter Horse. The mare dies giving birth, so his youngest son, Casey, raises the colt. Lloyd's other two sons, Buddy and Randy, make up the family of men, and all are involved in the Quarter Horse industry, barely surviving, until this colt comes along. It had a rather sad, and unsatisfying end for me as a kid, but it also leaves the reader to somewhat write their own ending, and, because of all the misfortunes of the perpetually down-on-their-luck characters, you really find yourself pulling for them.
Inside the cover of my edition, which is a first edition, is a stamp which reads "Snooper's Barn" 1101 Garrison Ave., Fort Smith, AR. This old-school used bookstore is one of my dad (and my!) favorite places, and I remember when he came to visit me when I lived there as a kid in the mid-80s, going to this bookstore to browse, and he bought this book for me. I had seen the movie on TV, so I was familiar with it.
It's about a trainer who comes across the opportunity of a lifetime, when his son purchases, on behalf of one of his clients, who is none too thrilled, an old mare bred to a great champion running Quarter Horse. The mare dies giving birth, so his youngest son, Casey, raises the colt. Lloyd's other two sons, Buddy and Randy, make up the family of men, and all are involved in the Quarter Horse industry, barely surviving, until this colt comes along. It had a rather sad, and unsatisfying end for me as a kid, but it also leaves the reader to somewhat write their own ending, and, because of all the misfortunes of the perpetually down-on-their-luck characters, you really find yourself pulling for them.
